Isle Of Dogs: The Fantastic Mr. Chief

Wes Anderson is a polarizing director. He's one of the few I'd say you either love him or hate him. His style of directing, his dialogue and his humor in general are tailored to those who understand his work. Even when he's gone "mainstream" with wide-released films like Fantastic Mr. Fox, there's still the Wes Anderson machine at work. Every actor is deadpan, spouting lines of dry humor within a very symmetrically shaped scene frame. I personally love it. I find most of his movies to be original pieces of work that bring happiness and joy to me as a movie-goer while dealing with real-life complicated issues. They're "fantastical" without being expensive. He uses a vast array of colors and set pieces that could fill a museum. His imagination is that of a Del Toro, only instead of using it for darkness, he uses it for quirk. My first experience with Wes Anderson was The Life Aquatic and then The Darjeeling Limited. Both of these films are generally relegated to the bottom of his filmography totem, but they're still my favorites because they're the ones that got me to love Anderson as a filmmaker. His brand of humor is unique and it's a nice change of pace to see a "different" comedy that makes me laugh and giggle and grin as much as a low-brow comedy can. And what's crazy-- he keeps getting better. The dude finally earned his first Oscar noms with The Grand Budapest Hotel, and in my opinion, Isle of Dogs is one the best movies he's ever made. The movie is elevated past some of his most iconic works on pure whimsy alone. I loved every second of it.

Set in Japan, an outbreak of "dog flu" has forced cat-loving/dog-hating Mayor Kobayashi to exile all dogs to Trash Island. There, a pack of dogs roam the island battling other factions of dogs for bags of trash. The dogs include Rex (Edward Norton), Boss (Bill Murray), Duke (Jeff Goldblum), King (Bob Balaban), and Chief (Bryan Cranston). All, except Chief, have been taken from their masters and forced to adapt to the lives of trash-dwelling strays. Chief, on the other hand, is a stray from very young and the leader of the pack-- due to his inclination to fight for what he wants (which is mostly, again, just bags of trash). A young boy, Atari, crash lands his little plane on the island in search of his lost dog Spots (Liev Schreiber). The pack band together to help young Atari locate his dog. The B story of this tale involves an American foreign exchange student, Tracy (Greta Gerwig) bringing to light a cure for dog flu that has been covered up by the Mayor in an attempt to keep dogs out of Japan. The adventure these characters go on is so fun and whimsical and seriously creative that it's hard not to sit there with a big dumbass grin on your face and giggle.

Isle of Dogs works in almost every way a movie can work and then some. Every single risk Anderson takes pays off. Starting with the idea of going with stop-motion again. The attention to detail Anderson takes, coupled with his unique style of filming and cinematography only enhances the gorgeous world (that just so happens to take place on an island of literal pieces of trash). The dogs are all meticulously constructed and animated, you forget you're watching figurines. Their eyes are vulnerable, their noses wet, their fur blowing in the wind-- it's almost more impressive to see than some of the best CGI we've seen in recent memory. All of these dogs are quirky and fun. Even the hard-nosed Chief, who is a self-proclaimed biter, is a lovable enough character that it's fun to watch his rough exterior change (even quite literally in one scene) to softened lovable pup. You can tell by watching this movie that Anderson really does have an affinity for canines.

The movie is also very funny. Wes Anderson, who looks like one of those dudes who lurks in the shadows of a Starbucks with his laptop, doesn't strike you as a guy with that great of a sense of humor. But he is. He's getting funnier too. His dry sense of humor, coupled with witty dialogue makes this movie humorous as well as charming. It's a love letter to dogs, with an adorable story at the forefront that reminds me why I started loving Wes Anderson in the first place. All of the voice actors fit in perfectly with his style and the deadpan delivery of lines mixed with the cuteness of the dogs somehow works-- even when it seems like it wouldn't. I'm really, really hoping this movie gets the attention that it deserves. 

You know those white people who are just obsessed with other cultures? A lot of times it's nerdy white dudes who just love Asian cultures-- this comes across very clearly with Wes Anderson. You can tell he has an affinity for all things Japanese. Along with hiring Japanese writer Kunichi Nomura to help make sure every detail was presented accurately, I love the fact that Anderson took the time to do so. All of the Japanese characters speak Japanese and while we do get some of the translations, a lot of the time we don't. And we don't need to. The dogs don't need to understand Atari's language to know that he's hurting for the loss of his dog and will do anything to find him. Is this cultural misappropriation? Maybe? I think there's a strong argument on both sides. Is there an inherent reason this movie needed to be set in Japan? No, probably not. But, I respect the fact that Anderson didn't just throw in his white-perception of Japan and actually took the measures to make sure everything was presented accurately and respectfully.

Keep in mind, parents with small children, even though this movie is animated and it's about talking animals-- it's not exactly a kids movie. There are some rough fights, some scarred up characters, a little bit of language and themes that children aren't going to understand (hence the PG-13 rating). There's no goofy singing and dancing and loud, outlandish dog characters there to entice children. It's a Wes Anderson movie. Had this movie been about people, the script would only need to change the species of its characters. It's not his attempt at a family film. But it is a well-executed, incredibly charming, overwhelmingly whimsical, dreadfully funny film that will melt the hearts of dog lovers everywhere. I loved this movie and even after just a single viewing, I can tell you that this film quickly encroaching the top of Anderson's filmography totem-- at least to me.

A

Ready Player One: I Heart The 80s

Steven Spielberg made a name for himself in the 70s and 80s by being the director who could make movies that were not only poignant and long-lasting in the zeitgeist of pop culture, but that were also very fun. He's the guy that brought us Jaws and E.T. and Indiana Jones and Hook and Jurassic Park and that's the just movies he directed. There's hundreds more you love (like Back to the Future) that he produced. Most of the pop culture references we reference from 80s movies have, in some way, to do with Spielberg. Then... he decided he wanted to become a "well-rounded" director and brought us things like Schindler's List and Munich and (ugh) War Horse. In his later years, Spielberg has stopped really continuing his legendary run of films. He's become more of a paint-by-numbers "that guy used to be so great" kind of director. It's not that his movies lately have been bad, but they're just not as ground-breaking as they used to be. It used to be an EVENT when a new Spielberg movie hit the marquee. Did anyone think The Post was an event? So, it's nice to see Spielberg getting back into the fun of movies. And what better movie than one who's every reference harkens back to the time when Spielberg was the king of pop culture?

Let's put this out there immediately-- Ready Player One is, by no means, groundbreaking. It's not that "holy shit Spielberg is back!" movie. But it is very, very entertaining. I wasn't expecting it to be, especially in the first twenty minutes or so. The film begins with some very loose exposition from our narrator Wade-- who is also our main character. The year is 2045 and people LIVE online. Everyone has a VR mask and suit and live in the Oasis. They work in the Oasis. They make money in the Oasis. They game, they dance, they date, they spend their entire lives online only breaking to eat, pee, or sleep. The creator of the game, Holliday (Mark Rylance), now dead, has placed an easter egg somewhere in the system so that the person who finds it (after passing a series of tests) becomes the rightful owner of the Oasis. Of course there's a competing company, the IOI, who want control of Oasis and their evil CEO Sorrento has been training an army of gamers to figure out Holliday's clues and gain control of the one thing that runs the world. Okay-- back to Wade. He's a gamer who lives in "The Stacks", a poverty-stricken trailer park community that's basically just trailers stacked on top of trailers as high as skyscrapers. For unexplained reasons, he's an orphan and lives with his abused aunt (who we get hardly any story around). He's hellbent on finding the easter egg. He works in a team with Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), and three faceless others. The film is them trying to beat the IOI guys from finding the easter egg. Back to the beginning-- this is all given to us from Wade's voiceover. It's so explanatory-- Spielberg uses his words as the entire backstory instead of building up this incredible new world for us. While I wasn't really left with any begging questions, I was really disappointed I didn't get to see more into the world other than the brief "let me catch you up" narration he gives us. Then we get to see Wade's avatar in the Oasis: Perzival. He's an anime looking weirdo who, everyday, drives in the same race (heh heh with a Delorean) to try and get a clue to the egg. And then... it's just kinda like watching someone play video games. Which, if you've ever done that... it's not that entertaining.

But then the movie started to suck me in a little bit. After really disliking watching Wade's avatar, the real world starts to become integrated in the conflict. And I started to care. A little. Once the adventure begins, I was hooked. Spielberg was entertaining me in a way that I hadn't been entertained since I was a kid. There's a lot of cool stuff in the movie and some really impressive CGI and an entire sequence involving the main characters and the hotel from The Shining that was really, really cool. But all of this entertainment was very surface-level. There weren't any complex characters. There weren't any underlying or internal struggles that each person has to overcome. There wasn't even really a ton of heart in the movie. It's just pure "forget everything else" entertainment. When you're not engrossed by the adventure, your eyes are darting all over the screen looking for all the 80s movies and music references scattered about. You're rooting for these characters, even though you're not wholly emotionally invested in them as people. And the games they have to play, the puzzles they have to figure out, and the way they overcome adversity is all very clever. But, that's about it. Don't think about it too hard after because Ready Player One definitely leaves you wanting much, much more-- which is weird because it's 140 minutes long. You'd think they'd given you everything you needed. I didn't read the source material the movie is based on-- so this review is purely from a blind cinematic experience, but in my opinion, I feel like it would've worked better as an HBO mini-series than a one-off movie.

For all the good in the movie, there's the "less good". One of the puzzles they figure out is very, very easy. Yet, we're told experts have been trying 24 hours a day to crack the code for nearly five years. I figured it out before Wade even does. That strained credulity a lot (though I'll give them this-- it was the only one. The others are pretty clever). Spielberg has his characters explain things-- a lot. It's explained enough that a decent audience should understand what's happening, but it feels like Spielberg doesn't his trust his audiences enough anymore and it's explained further and further as if to a child-- yet, the people doing the explaining already know what's going on, so there's no reason to explain it to each other. It bothered me. Several times. The "love story" part of the movie is actually kinda creepy. Wade is smitten with Art3mis after meeting her once. He tells her during the second meeting. She reveals that she's not the same person in real life that she is in the game. They meet. He's still in love with her.... so she now loves him? There's not much chemistry between them and the way he keeps PUSHING with the whole "I found love you guys" starts to become a little... I don't know... yeah, just creepy. And because we don't get a whole lot of underlying emotional groundwork laid for any of these characters (other than Wade doesn't have parents for some reason), we can't really understand their reasons for doing anything. Finally, there's the pop culture references. Some of them are really, really fun (especially the Zemeckis cube-- I loved that). But, in the battle at the end, when all the characters from all the 80s references collide into one big battle-- Spielberg is all over the place too quickly. You can hardly rest your eyes on any single character. The fun of the film is seeing all the different characters you watched during your childhood, but the camera work is so frenetic all you're able to make out is a hodgepodge of animated characters battling an army of assholes. If you're going to make a movie devoted to 80s pop culture, let us bask in it a little bit and point to the screen and go "hey! That's Terminator!" or "Hey! That's Rambo!" But it was too difficult to see much of anything other than the fight.

Ready Player One is very enjoyable and extremely entertaining, but I do believe Spielberg in the 80s was more qualified to direct this film than Spielberg today. There's a fair amount of action and humor in the movie and if you turn your brain off, then it's a solid way to spend nearly three hours in a theater. But it will definitely leave you wanting more. The good news is-- that "more" you want can be satiated by just watching all the movies referenced in the film. I can get what I want out of Ready Player One by going home and watching Back to the Future. I can get my fun and excitement with character depth by popping in Jaws or Jurassic Park. It's not good enough to declare "Spielberg's back!", but it does give make us hope that Spielberg can churn out a few more sci-fi adventures before the end of his career. And if you're a video game/80s nerd... this movie will be like porn to you. But you already knew that.

Oh-- and Simon Pegg with an American accent-- totally diminishes what we love about Simon Pegg. We'll let it slide this time, Pegg. Don't do it again.

B-

Red Sparrow: Honeypottin'

From what I can recall from the Marvel movies, the character of Black Widow is an ex-Russian spy who has been kidnapped(?) from her family and trained from childhood to be a super soldier. Only after some regretful kills and mishaps, she learns the error of her ways and decides(?) to switch sides and fight for good-- or at least fight for someone who isn't Russia. That's when she's recruited(?) by the Avengers for her badass fighting skills and knowledge and general awesomeness. She's a strong character that, if Hollywood knew what they were doing, would've had two or three solo movies about her already. So, if the plot and trailers of Red Sparrow have led you to believe that you will be getting was is essentially a mock-Black Widow film complete with a super-soldier Russian chick going ham on bad guys-- you are going to be sorely disappointed in the film. Red Sparrow is NOT an action film, it's not a shoot-em-up, hand-to-hand combat, Atomic Blonde-esque movie. It's a character-focused espionage thriller that's more about the twists and turns of the central character leading to the (probably obvious) outcome that doesn't involve much action at all. There is a lot wrong with Red Sparrow as it does have several faults, but there is, indeed, much to enjoy here as well.

Jennifer Lawrence is Dominika, a premiere ballerina in Russia who seriously injures her leg (cringe-worthy moment) and is forced out of a life she loved. Her mother is ill and the only income they have is from the ballet. Desperate for money to help her mom, Dominika turns to her creepy, pervert-eyes uncle who works for the Russian government. He sends her to a special school in the middle of snowy-nowhere to become a "Sparrow"-- special agents trained to use their looks to lure suspects in, gain their trust, and kill the piss out of them. Dominika is reluctant, but with no other options she joins the Sparrows. For some reason that is never truly explained, she excels at it-- especially the mind manipulation part of it. From there, she's recruited back by the Russian government to pull the ole' honeypot on an American CIA agent (Joel Edgerton), to try and get the name of a mole he is protecting. There's more to it than that and it's a convoluted CIA plot that can get a little tedious trying to keep up with, but generally everything is wrapped up in the end to make a somewhat clearer picture.

Now, the movie is based off of a book series (like most movies these days), so I can only assume the film stays true(ish) to the book, but what I saw was a lot of missed opportunity for some fun. Yes, it's cool to have a thrilling whodunnit filled with allegiance flip flops to keep the audience guessing (you won't be), but there were some real moments where I could tell the audience I was sittting with (and myself) was craving some real ass kicking. I'm not even talking about something as skilled and awesome as the one-shot, stairwell, hand-to-hand, Charlize Theron fight, but if we've been getting training montages and talking about how failure can lead to death, we need to see things go wrong and see Dominika get pissed off with her fists. But it doesn't really happen. She's more cold and calculated (with a couple of random outbursts of very brief retaliatory violence), than an action hero in the making. I'm not just saying this because it's what I wanted out of the movie, I'm saying it because it looked like it was being set up to do so. When Dominika finds out that her injury was pre-planned by her ballet partner and his lover, she goes off and nearly beats them to death with her cane. This is in the very beginning of the movie, yet we don't really get to see Dominika fight like that in the rest of the movie.

But it is a decent thriller. I am one of these moviegoers who isn't trying to solve the mystery early on. I like to enjoy the ride, so I'm one of these vulnerable types who normally doesn't see a twist coming when most people do because I'm not constantly guessing. So, the ending of Red Sparrow was kind of a strange one for me. There are several twists leading up to the climax and I saw about half of them coming (without even thinking about it) and the other ones weren't exactly eye-poppingly shocking. So, if you're one who constantly tries to predict the outcomes of entertainment, it's probably going to be a letdown for you in that aspect as well. However, that wasn't really my biggest problem with the movie. I liked the story, I liked the characters, I liked the acting... but the writing felt... off. I appreciate what writer Justin Haythe was trying to do with the film, giving it a very feminist arc, but it's a feminist story written by a dude. A dude who THINKS he knows what feminists want out of their main characters and of the stories. According to Haythe, in order to make a strong female protagonist, one must make every single man in the movie complete and utter sewage. Literally every male character in the entire film (save for Edgerton) is a slime. They come on to J-Law with basically drool already sputtering down their chins. Two separate characters in two separate scenes attempt to rape her. The product of a good feminist movie and title character is not she's great because all men are bad and this is where Red Sparrow really misses the mark, and it comes off as more insulting to women than empowering them.

J-Law apparently still has some draw. I honestly didn't think this movie was going to be a huge hit, mainly because films like it recently haven't made a ton of money. They've done well, but not top of the charts well. However, the theater I normally frequent when seeing my Thursday night premieres was packed. The reason we pick this theater for Thursdays is because there's never anyone there. We saw the 8:00 Atomic Blonde at the same theater and there were maybe six other people. Red Sparrow was completely sold out. I was trying to gauge the audience on the way out and no one was really putting the movie down. And it makes sense. Whatever faults the movie has can be overlooked by the good in it-- especially J-Law. If I was a betting man, I would've bet a lot that her accent was going to be dreadful. And it wasn't. Because she's a great actor. Joel Edgerton is always a joy to watch and he and J-Law had some very good chemistry (even if their entire storyline is full of plotholes). So, there is stuff to like. But, it's not superior to Atomic Blonde and it's definitely not a "thinkin-man's movie". It's an entertaining little film that can be enjoyed if you just switch your brain off for a little bit and watch the pretty colors.

C